


Shut Up And Ride

by deansmultitudes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brief mention of homophobia, Canon Universe, Case Fic, Casual Flirting, Gen, Water, dean hunting solo, mentions of Dean’s hell trauma, mentions of parental abuse, missing teens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29236977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deansmultitudes/pseuds/deansmultitudes
Summary: After the whole mess with Benny, Amelia and the mostly-okay-Martin, Dean’s trying to catch up to Sam to make peace with him. It’s just Dean’s luck that on his way, he stumbles upon a case of missing teens. The investigation brings him to the river and to the thing that haunts it.
Relationships: Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: Dean Winchester Big Bang 2021





	Shut Up And Ride

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for [Dean Winchester Big Bang 2021](https://deanwbigbang.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Check out the awesome [art by sandy79](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29236464)
> 
> Huge huge thanks to my awesome beta FPwoper ❤❤❤
> 
> As always, thanks to tco for everything ❤

Dean’s just past halfway from Carencro, Louisiana to Kermit, Texas, when the rumbling in his stomach, slowly building up since the missed pecan pie ‘round yesterday’s lunch, at last forces him to stop. His stomach’s already in knots for reasons adjacent to him missing a bunch of meals: namely, Mostly-Okay-Martin’s body on the diner floor, Benny’s untimely near-demise and that one freakin’ text message to Sam. Three things that are, of course, all equal on the scale of ‘douchebag’, and all, somehow, probably Dean’s fault.

It sure was a night, and now, with a six hour drive on top of it, Dean knows better than to try to keep pushing on. Half an hour for a burger and fries isn’t gonna make him any more late to his scheduled shouting match with Sam and the little grovelling session thereafter, ‘cause is that not how it always ends? So it’s not like he’s looking forward to it. So the burger wins.

The sign says Johnson City, but the place has as much to do with a city as Dean has with the top of the ladder of academic career. Just another small town in the endless line of small towns in Dean’s life—one that’s not even supposed to make a notch.

He passes by a diner that looks as decent as they go, pulls up to the nearest parking lot down the road. He’d have felt the buzzing of his phone in his jeans pocket even if the radio, turned up loud enough to drown out his thoughts, drowned out the ringtone, too. That’s if the phone deigned to ring in the first place. Dean still checks for notifs from Sam but all he gets is a weather report.  _ Sunny and cold. _

“No shit, Sherlock,” he mutters.

Hopefully it’s less sunny farther up north. On that thought, Dean opens his messages and skips right past Sam and to the thread that consists of something more than the endless silent tantrum on the other end. The one with Benny’s name on top.

_ How’s the Greyhound treatin’ those old bones of yours? _

Benny couldn’t even afford the luxury of traveling under the cover of the night, away from the threat of a vampiric sunburn. He had to get as far and as fast as possible, deep, deep underground, and that meant never stopping for sleep or a healthy dose of SPF 100.

He had to leave the little scrap of life he managed to build for himself, leave his traumatized great granddaughter, too. His only family, no goodbyes.

He couldn’t even take his less than homey trailer with him either (only halfway through proper repairs), which is a shame, ‘cause it’s always good to have somewhere to crash when a motel’s not an option—and Dean knows something about that.

The answer pops up on the screen near immediately.  _ My bones are fine but not a lick of sleep with all those people yammering on and no leg space. _

Dean can’t hold back a soft smile. Nothing funny about the whole situation, it just feels good to hear from Benny and imagine his grumpy tone as he complains about regular humans.

_ Who’da thought night-owling’s got downsides. Still heading for the mountains, mountain man? _

Dean furrows his brow at his own weak-ass response, but hits send anyway.

_ Should I be waiting for you with a glass of hot mead and a snow shovel? _

Sure does sound nice, Dean thinks, as his thumb hovers over the keys. He’s not much for freezing his ass off, but bunking up in a warm hut with a crackling fireplace, a glass of original recipe vampirate mead, the ease of just being around Benny, no monsters to hide from, no hunters on Benny’s tail—it’d be a sweet break from all of this. From Sam’s cold shoulder and Crowley breathing down their necks.

But it’s just that, a nice thought. Something he can’t even let himself hold on to: Benny’s a wanted man and Dean—well, he’s on the schedule. Closing the Gates of Hell, saving people, and all that family business.

_ Raincheck. _

Dean drops the phone on the painfully empty passenger seat. There’s not gonna be much chance for relaxing even as he stuffs his stomach, but at the very least this way he can avoid keeping on checking for new messages every five seconds like a lovesick teenage girl; those that won’t be coming today and those that still might.

It’s a bit of a walk from the parking lot down the cracked pavement. The whole street is empty but for a car passing through the intersection every now and then and the girl strumming on her guitar for no one. There are a few coins glistening in her guitar case and one sad, crumpled dollar bill—for shit not worth standing here in the crisp air of the late fall and running some maudlin indie tune to the ground.

Not the best spot for it, or time. Frankly, not the best town—she’d have a better shot if she hopped on a bus to Austin, though it was definitely not possible with the change at her feet. A change of repertoire wouldn’t hurt either.

Dean reaches for his wallet, pulls out a few worn out bills.

“How about some good music?” he says, dropping the money into her case. A black sharpie on the red interior reads ‘Sam’. Dean pulls his eyes away.

The girl’s palm lands across the strings, cutting the melody. She looks barely out of junior high and, despite the heavy boots, a little underdressed for the weather.

“And what would that be?” she asks, seizing him up head to toe. “Eric Clapton?”

Dean blinks, not sure exactly how offended he should be. Is it too late to grab that money back?

“Zeppelin,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world—because it is, of course. “Or Creedence. Anything but...whatever it is you’re currently playing.”

She gives him a crooked smile. “Sure, old man.”

Dean gives her a scowl that she doesn’t see, her eyes fixed on the guitar neck as she’s recalling the chords. Soon the upbeat tunes start flowing from her fingers, her high pitched voice giving Lodi a new, peculiar vibe.

He’s not gonna hazard joining her—she’s doing much better on her own. With his hands thrust deep in his pockets, Dean sways a little on his feet, his head bobbing to the rhythm. It feels good to just be there, present in the moment; not a trouble in the world.

And he was right—of course—about the change of tune, too. Right away there’s a passer-by leaning down to drop some change into her case, the jacket of his tailored suit stretching over his wide shoulders. It’s a nice suit, nice shoulders too. The guy doesn’t stop to listen, Dean’s eyes follow him until he disappears behind a corner.

That’s where something else catches Dean’s attention; big red letters on a poster stuck to a lamp post. He knows those kinds of posters all too well. Though he’s telling himself to leave it, his legs are already carrying him towards the smiling faces on the poorly printed photo.

_ Have you seen these boys? Jake Jones and Mark Foster, age 17. _

A brief description of the two boys follows, along with the time and circumstances of their disappearance. Two days ago, the riverbank. It’s still relatively fresh. There’s still a chance the boys are alive—as long as there are no bodies, there’s a chance. In his head, instinctively, Dean begins to list water-based monsters: rusalkas and water sprites and horribly stray bunyips.

Or a high tide, a Green Day concert a few towns over, a regular, human kidnapper. Not everything is a case, he reminds himself, no matter how uncomfortable the thought sits with him. He’s not here to hunt monsters. He’s only here to eat and move on.

The boy on the right has Bieber-wannabe bangs falling into his eyes, his arm tossed around the shoulders of the other boy with the most miserable peach fuzz and the widest smile. They’re just kids. Scared, freezing and alone, somewhere in a monster’s lair, waiting to be eaten.

Not if Dean has something to say about it.

“You know anything about those missing kids?” he asks from halfway back to the girl whose fingers are now barely grazing the strings, her brow knitted as she looks up at him. He points to the poster.

“They’re missing.”

“Wow. Insightful.”

She lifts the guitar to pull the strap over her head, but her movements, too rushed, make the strap twist in her long, raven-black locks. Dean waits impatiently for her to untangle it before giving her a nudge.

“How about something I don’t know?”

She lets out a sigh as she crouches to scoop her loot into her pockets.

“I can tell you that there was a search party, they even combed the river in case the boys drowned, but…” She trails off, as if Dean’s supposed to fill the rest out for himself, and focuses on dumping her guitar into the case.

“But what?” he inquires, watching her. There’s something about her hasty moves, in her tugging impatiently at the zipper pull when it fails to cooperate.

“Well, this ain’t exactly the Amazon river.” Her free hand waves around in irritation, either at the zipper or at Dean—most likely both. “Not in that spot and not in this weather—it hasn’t rained in days.”

“So they couldn’t have drowned?”

“Oh, they could.” She finally wins her battle and stands up. Her eyes remain fixed on her fingernails. Her tone is so matter-of-factly, like it’s not possibly dead teens she’s talking about; boys hardly older than her, boys she must have passed in the high school hallways. “But they’d have probably turned up by now if they had.”

Dean takes her word for it, at least until he sees the riverbank himself. And he’s gonna have to see it for himself and hope that the cops didn’t destroy any evidence while scouting the place instead of bagging it up. The things he’s looking for—a fang, a weird scale, an echo of a ghastly EMF—they are usually things just weird enough for them to blame them on an animal or overlook entirely.

Of course it’s never a freaking animal. And it’s never just drowning. Not with Dean’s luck.

At the very least, Dean has to check it out, whether he likes it or not. As long as there are no bodies, no pools of blood soaked into stones, there’s a chance the kids are still alive and if so, he’s gonna do anything in his power to bring them back. Because things might be falling apart in his life right now, but saving people? That Dean knows how to do. At least this one thing he can fix.

“What spot would that be?”

“Why do you care?” At last, her eyes are on him, cold and suspicious. “What are you, a cop or something?”

“Or something,” Dean says. There’s no point in getting into it with her—he doesn’t have the FBI badge on him anyway. Not that he couldn’t pose a convincing agent even without it. “Just tell me how to get there and I’m out of your hair.”

She muses on that for a moment, probably not wanting to be a narc and eventually deciding that Dean would find out anyway.

“It’s this kind of a local spot for parties and bonfires,” she says, pointing to the right branch of the nearest fork in the road. “Just take that road and follow it up north for like three miles.”

Dean nods, taking mental notes of her directions. Parties at the riverbank sound more like a summer thing: nights are gonna be even colder than it is now and Dean can’t imagine that being pleasant. But then, with enough booze running through the veins and the orange flames rising high, the weather doesn’t matter much, does it?

“Then it’ll take some walking down the stream but you’ll recognize the place by all the beer cans.”

Dean finds the spot without a problem, thankful that he wore solid shoes for the rocky trek. It’s sort of a natural alcove, surrounded by solid stone walls from three sides, good three feet taller than Dean and no path leading there but the one alongside the river.

He’d recognize it even without the beer cans—but there sure are beer cans. There are empty chip bags tossed around in the wind and, at its entrance, shards of green glass glistening among the pebbles lining the bank. And the remains of the bonfire: a wide circle of ash and half burned wooden blocks. On both sides, two dead tree trunks make for benches, along with two old car seats tucked closely together, their upholstery singed from the flying sparks and wrapped in plastic to prevent the rain from soaking it through. A few feet farther, below a natural overhang of sand-colored stone, there’s a back seat from a different car, covered with a pile of old, raggy blankets.

Dean has to admit that it’s a damn sweet spot. Beautiful too. Even in the afternoon sun that begins to tilt into orange, and draws long shadows from the tall rocks and trees towering on top of them. In the summer, in the scorching Texan heat and the reprieve of cool water, it must be a view for “Wish you were here” postcards.

He can’t blame the kids for flocking to it. Looks innocuous enough, too. In the daylight, at least.

In the night time, though? In the midst of being chased by an unnatural predator, with no other way of escape but running on rough turf, along the monster-infested waters, all while drunk, cold and panicked—it’s as elegant a trap as they come.

Dean pulls the EMF meter out from his inner pocket. It’s a long shot—most ghosts don’t tend to be very outdoorsy and Dean already checked for any known cases of deaths on the river on his way here and got no hits anywhere near. He turns the thing on and it gives him nothing; not a single blip, not a blink of a red light. He moves closer to the water, reaches out his arm above the lazy current. Still nothing.

This does narrow things down, albeit slightly. So does a closer glance at the river, at first. It washes up close to the bonfire but stays nicely in its lane, it’s clean and perfectly clear; taking the refraction into account, Dean would estimate it as reaching up to his knees at best. Farther towards the center of the river, there’s more sandy rocks poking out than there seems to be water. If Dean plotted his path well, he could probably make it across with his boots dry.

Where the river dips, though, in pockets a few feet wide, the water seems to be treacherous, swirling as it cascades into the wells. Even from there, they look dark and menacing enough that Dean’s not eager to approach them. For all he knows, their bottoms could be as well tickling Hell’s belly.

A shiver runs through Dean’s bones at the thought.

The boys could definitely drown in those, though the distance implies some sort of intent or a hell of a lot of recklessness—which is the one thing that comes in overabundance inside bottles of booze.

Two kids too full of life for their own good, messing around on the river, drunk out of their wits. Slipping, falling, getting pulled down, down, down the black pit, their arms thrashing around trying to find a way back topside but unable to resist, their strength wilting, their lungs running out of air and soon running with water.

Dean takes a sharp breath as if he too was drowning just now.

They could have drowned, yes. But it couldn’t be a simple drowning. As the Sam-girl said, they’d have probably bobbed up to the surface by now. The weather report confirmed there was no solid rainfall—no rainfall at all—in the region. The river couldn’t possibly have carried their bodies away.

If they were drowned, though, that’s a whole different story.

Dean tears his eyes away from the water and back to the ashes of the bonfire, to every inch of their surroundings. He treads carefully, making sure not to step on any piece of evidence, takes notes of every detail. There’s mud on every single beer can that scatters the ground: dirty edges or shoe prints in the middle where they got stomped on. The smashed glass ain’t fresh either, sunk deep among the rocks.

There’s a plastic cover for the backseat too—nobody wants to deal with water damage, after all. But it’s thrown on it haphazardly, like someone planned to put it back as they found it but were in too much of a hurry or maybe didn’t care. But it’s covered. So there was no spontaneous night diving and by the looks of it no alcohol involved.

They were about to leave when they were snatched. Maybe on their way back already, though Dean didn’t notice any drag marks on his way here, no pebbles kicked around as they struggled against their attacker, no blood.

Unless they went the other way.

The path is way narrower there, barely a foot of dry land separating the tall wall from water. Dean has no idea where it leads or if there’s any guarantee there’s even a way back to the road there, not just an endless, serpentine trap up until he hits the Colorado River. But it might be a closer way to the boys’ homes, or the way the monster came.

Dean only makes it a few yards before, with a wet smack, his foot slips. His arms flail, body nearly topples over, but he manages to regain his balance and stand solidly on a firm ground again, his back pressed against the rock wall.

“That was close,” he mutters to himself. He really wasn’t looking forward to a cold bath today.

So much for not stepping on the evidence. He should have been way more careful with each step; the solid, dry stone made him a little too confident given his location. With the easy flow of water, never raising or splashing on the path, he didn’t expect there to be mud there. Or was it even mud?

He drops his eyes to where he last put his foot, expecting partially coagulated blood, chunks of muscle and skin, even the shapeshifter special flavor of nasty droppings. But it’s just a clump of seaweed. There’s more of it farther down, as if someone—or something—came out from the water and carried the seaweed on their feet.

Dean crouches by the biggest clump, flattened on the stone. The partial imprint on it is clear, vaguely heart-shaped and smoother than any shoe Dean’s ever seen. Seems more like an animal, a horse, maybe. Or, well, a man-eating monster.

Reflexively, Dean turns around to tell Sam about his discovery.

Right. He almost forgot how much hunting alone sucked, especially not having anyone to open his mouth to.

He pulls out his phone and takes the picture of the imprint, instead.

_ Does this look like a horse hoof to you? _ he types and sends it to Benny.

Is this what they do now? Texting like a couple of teens about random stuff? Or is he just bothering the guy? He’s probably sleeping right now, anyway, or the sound of the new message woke him up and he’s gonna be pissed.

How would Benny even know about horses? Not many of those on pirate ships, are there?

Before Dean gets to overthink, a deep, southern drawl interrupts him.

“A li’l cold for a swim, ain’t it?”

Dean straightens up, his eyes snap around until he finds the source—a man looking at him from the top of the cliff. He’s big and burly, or at least looks that way from where Dean’s standing with his neck bent back. This is gonna be one hell of an uncomfortable conversation.

“Was thinking about starting winter swimming, actually,” Dean snarks. “But maybe some other time. So just taking a look around this time.”

“At anythin’ in particular?”

The guy’s face is impenetrable and partially hidden in the shade of the wide tree spreading behind him. There’s something about him that seems familiar, but Dean can’t pinpoint it yet. Dean doesn’t exactly owe him an explanation. There was no police tape around the place. As much as it should, it’s not considered the scene of a crime. Dean has every right to be here.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“Detective Porter,” the guy introduces himself, flashing the badge Dean couldn’t possibly read from here.

Dean repays him with the same. “Agent Ford, with the FBI.”

There’s about half a mile of walk back before he can get to eye level with the detective and he sure has got some questions for him. This won’t do.

“FBI, really? Listen, I know what y’all think about small town police, but we know how to do our—”

“Hold up a second,” Dean cuts him off.

Ignoring the detective’s scowl, Dean retreads his steps back to the alcove.

The overhang raises three or so feet above his head. Bouldering might not be Dean’s forte—he’s definitely more of a jumping over the fence kind of guy—but he should manage. Or make a complete laughing stock out of himself.

Dean wipes his palms on his thighs, bouncing gently on his feet to prepare himself; his heels nearly touching the water. He shoots forward, gaining velocity before jumping up, his arms reaching for the overhang. As his fingers hold firmly to the rock, Dean doesn’t waste the momentum, swings his legs up and finds the footing on the wall.

It’s a bit touch and go for a moment as he pulls his weight up, but he quickly manages to throw his leg up over the edge and his main concern becomes whether his pants ripped during his acrobatics.

If only Dean thought about this sooner, spared himself a long trek both ways from and back to the car that’s waiting for him at the road’s end.

He quickly assesses how his pants are doing and dusts himself off by the time Detective Porter joins him, a mildly impressed smirk playing on his lips.

Now, they can talk.

“I’m gon’ take a wild guess and say you’re here about the missin’ boys,” the Detective says, pushing his hands into the pockets of his suit pants.

Up close, Dean recognizes the pinstriped gray suit. Recognizes the broad shoulders too. The passer-by from before. Did he follow Dean here? Or is he just keeping an eye out at the site of the disappearances?

Dean nods. “Doesn’t look like there was much of a party there.”

“Who said there’d been a party?”

Dean opens his mouth but the guy cuts him off before he can answer.

“Listen, I’ve no idea why the bureau sent someone here, but between you and me, there ain’t nothing to look for.”

“Right. Except for two missing boys.”

Porter lets out a sight on the edge of irritation. “We combed through the river, searched the woods, alerted the cops in five counties. We  _ are _ looking for them.”

“But?”

“My money’s on that comic convention they got in Dallas this weekend. Hadn’t told their parents ‘cause they wouldn’t let them.”

That’s a convenient excuse. Until the con ends and the boys aren’t back home. And it’s too damn late to save more than their bones.

“Have you—?”

“We’ll know the moment their faces show up at the gate.”

“Or they don’t,” Dean says, pointedly. “Because they got kidnapped and are in grave danger.”

Porter lets out the faintest huff of a chuckle, as if Dean was being ridiculous. And Dean knows already what the guy’s about to say, before he says it.

“Or that,” Porter admits, though he still doesn’t look convinced. “The thing is, plenty of people go missing around here, only for them to turn up a few towns over starting a new life away from abusive partners or failed businesses. Or they’re up in Austin, sipping whiskey and listening to live country music.”

“Any of them turn up dead?”

“Last ten years? A couple drunkards in the gutter, some accidents.”

Dean mulls it over for a moment. If there have been no unsolved cases in recent times, nothing to build a pattern from, there might really not be much more to it—or it might be a brand new drifting monster making their home in the town and the boys are just an aperitif.

“And how many of those missing people were teens?”

Porter bites his lip. “None,” he says, eventually. “But if it’s not the convention, they probably just got enough and booked it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he starts, then hesitates, as if he maybe said too much. He runs fingers through his hair, making the longish locks stick out. The silver at his temples glistening in the sun in stark contrast to the raven black. “Jake’s father ain’t even deigned to come in to file a missin’ person’s case.”

That tells Dean a lot. He probably didn’t wanna show off his bruised knuckles at the police station.

“And the other one?”

“They ain’t anywhere they wouldn’t go together, so—”

“—one wouldn’t let the other hit the road alone,” Dean finishes for him.

Whether from the picture or just the way Porter talked about them, Dean got the feeling they were thick as thieves. Almost like brothers; supporting each other through the dark times, one following the other wherever the road would take them, whatever they had to leave behind.

Until they don’t, Dean thinks bitterly, but pushes the thought away. There’s no time for his own festering wound when the boys’ chances of survival drop by a minute.

Party or not, they were in this alcove together—a tasty double treat for the monster, who snuck up to them, grabbed both and dragged them to its lair, wherever that might be. And that—dinner—is the optimistic version. That means at least one of them might still be alive, stashed for late, while the other probably wasn’t so lucky. It’s not a thought Dean likes entertaining, but it’s the brutal reality of the job. The important part is that he has to hurry if he wants to have a shot at saving anyone.

“Okay, I see where you’re going with this, but I’m gonna have to check this anyway. It’s cold outside, even if they ran, they might be squatting somewhere and freezing their asses off.”

“Told you we do have people on the lookout,” Porter says, slightly offended at the implication. “We searched all the possible squattin’ places, we asked in motels too. We  _ really _ don’t need an FBI—”

“Good,” Dean cuts him off, sharply. As much as Dean didn’t plan the job, he’s not gonna let a cop tell him what to do. If he has to sell it harder, he will. “I’m still gonna need everything you got on them so far. You know, normally I wouldn’t be this concerned, but there had been a few missing cases all over Bastrop County lately, so you know how it is,” Dean bluffs.

Porter’s eyebrows ride up in surprise. He better not go fact-checking it or Dean will be screwed.

“Well, if you really have nothin’ better to do with your life, go ahead and dig, maybe you’ll find somethin’ we hadn’t. I can get you the file if you come to the station, but it ain’t much.” He pulls the car keys out of his pockets and begins walking to his car, then stops and turns back to Dean. “You got a way to get there?”

Well, this is embarrassing. And annoying. “I do, somewhere… there,” Dean says, waving his arm along the river. Stupid cliffs and shit.

“Thought so.” Porter tips his head inviting him to his car, which is very nice of him, given the building animosity. “Let me give you a ride to your car, will be much faster.”

Dean isn’t too proud not to take the offer. They get to the Impala in no time, she’s waiting right where Dean left her.

“That wouldn’t be an Impala, would it?” Porter asks, pulling to a stop right next to her.

“Yes, she is.”

Before Dean gets to add anything else, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

_ Sure is. Why? Planning to get into horseback riding? I can give you some tips. _

Dean did not give Benny enough credit. He’ll have to reply later. He clears his throat.

“One more thing,” he says. “You got a lot of swimming horses here?”

Porter lifts an eyebrow. “Swimming horses?” he echoes, amused. “No. But we do have a horse trail on the river. Pretty much the town attraction. Why? You found something there?”

“Nah,” he says, with his hand on the handle. “Turns out I didn’t.”

There really isn’t that much in the case file that he doesn’t already know. The time of the disappearance was estimated at between eight and nine in the evening. The last time Mark’s parents saw him in the late afternoon before he left the house to meet up with Jake. A few words from Jake’s father about an argument he had with his son—supposedly about his grades—after which Jake and Mark stormed out never to be seen again. Jake’s a troublemaker and it’s not his first time running away from home, the father said.

But it turns out that Jake’s dad wasn’t the last person who saw the boys and Dean’d love to have known about a witness sooner. Especially this witness. He should have known. No—he  _ did _ know, but chose not to follow his gut.

Samantha Groves. Sam.

Dean’s at her doorstep as soon as the last of the sauce from his cheeseburger is licked off his fingers. The file had her address: about a half a mile from the site, and it doesn’t take him long to find the right house.

It takes ringing the doorbell three times before he gets any answer, but Dean’s got time—he gave up on the idea he’ll get to Kermit today and got himself a motel room. The fast approaching night, however, is a different thing. The sky’s already ashen on the east. Dean’s always hated how early it gets dark this time of year—the longer the night, the more time for the monsters to do their evil deeds.

Hopefully, after nabbing two teens, the thing is sated for a while, but he can’t be sure. He must assume that as soon as the sky turns black and a stray neighbor happens to stumble close enough to the riverbank, they might end up as human chowder.

There shuffling noises coming from behind the door and the faint light in the peephole disappears for a moment.

“What the hell do you want from me, dude?” says a familiar voice.

“Just a few more questions, it’s important.”

“Go to Jeopardy, or something,” her voice conveying enough irritation to put a lesser man off. “I don’t have time for this.”

Dean kind of wanted to avoid this, especially without his suit on because it feels plain wrong, but the universal truth is that a badge is better at opening doors than even a skeleton key. He lifts it to the peephole.

“I’m agent Ford, with the FBI. Please, open the door.”

He hears a muffled curse followed by something along the lines of “I’m never listening to Creedence again,” before the lock turns.

He could barely recognize her if it wasn’t for her strong make-up still on. Her edgy clothes are exchanged for a stained sweatshirt, heavy boots for fluffy bunny slippers, and the guitar in her hands for a toddler on her arm.

“I already told the cops everything,” she says right off the bat. “Thought they were taking notes.”

They were, of course. All she had to say was in the file: she heard them at the riverbank on her way to the guitar lessons she gives. When she was on her way back an hour later, they were gone. Dean could swear there was more to the story than just that.

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

She lets out a long suffering sigh and lets the kid down on their feet. “Go check if Lizzie didn’t eat your gross banana mush,” she says, giving them a gentle, encouraging pat on the diaper. The kid strolls away on wobbly legs.

“What a cutie,” Dean says with a soft smile, but gets a cold glare in return as she crosses her arms and doesn’t budge an inch from the doorway.

“Sister,” she clarifies, just in case he assumed otherwise. “What do you wanna know? They were there and then they weren’t, end of story.”

“You saw Jake and Mark at around eight pm.”

“I heard them,” she corrects. “I walked down the road above the riverbank, they were down below. There was no way to see the alcove from the pavement.”

“And how did you know who they were?”

“I didn’t. I just said I heard some guys, the cops put two and two together.”

“Did you hear what they were talking about?”

Dean doesn’t miss the way Samantha shifts her weight from one leg to the other. In the interrogation, she claimed the voices were too mangled and she was too far away to understand anything.

“I didn’t get close enough to understand them. I didn’t know it would be important, I just stayed in my lane. I don’t go eavesdropping people, you know.”

And that’s a lot of excuses for a simple question right there.

“You sure you didn’t catch anything, not a word? Like, ‘enough’ or ‘escape’ or ‘greyhound’? Nothing?”

“Nope,” she says quickly. “Are we done?”

Dean ignores her question, turns his head towards where the road leads to the alcove. Dean already took a walk this long today and, even with his mind set on looking for the traces, it was a boring trek.

“You were talking to give a guitar lesson—how often do you do that?”

“Twice a week. What are you, the IRS?”

“And how far is that? A mile or so?”

“About that, yeah?”

“That’s quite a bit to walk alone.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You know, this reminds me, when I was around your age”—and younger, much younger—”I’d live in a town like this. Wherever you wanna go it’s always so far, right? Even to a stupid grocery store. But you gotta eat so you gotta take a trip. It was so annoying.”

“Yeah, if you’re a whiny brat. Where the hell are you going with this?”

“My brother had got this walkman for his birthday, once. Pretty sweet thing, at least at the time”—if you didn’t count a few scratches and a stuck rewind button but it was the best Dean could do in that kind of pawnshop with that kind of money—“So whenever I had to take a long trip, I’d borrow it from him, put on some AC/DC, made the trip pass way quicker.”

It happened exactly once and Dean had to  _ borrow  _ the thing from Sam’s bag when Sam was in a shower, ‘cause Sam would never lend it to him as if Dean was gonna break it or chew through the headphone wires. He was so pissy for a week after that, Dean never tried to take the walkman again. The joke’s on Sam because it’s Dean who now carries it in his duffle, even if the beeping noises it makes these days are way more ominous than  _ Hells Bells _ .

But Dean actually has a point here. And judging by Samantha’s expression, she already caught his drift.

“So what was it? Some, uh, Green Day? A bit of Fall Out Boy?”

“Nothing,” she says without conviction. Dean doesn’t have to call bull—her tone, her hands that can’t find their place do it for him.

“Foo Fighters?” he tries again and hopes he won’t have to keep going because he’s running out of hip bands kids these days listen to.

It’s his pointed stare that breaks her. “Okay, so I was listening to music. That’s not a crime,” she blurts out defensively. But she knows it’s not what she was listening to that’s the problem but what she could not hear over the electric guitars.

“Listen, I’m not here to get you in trouble,” Dean says softly, easing up on his FBI persona. She needs to trust him the way she couldn’t trust the cops who might have deemed her crazy and dismiss her, and perhaps even the way she couldn’t trust her own eyes the other night. “I just want to find those boys. And I  _ know _ you know more than you’re saying.”

Samantha bites her lips and turns her head to take a good look inside the house, probably making sure the toddler was still in sight and safe.

“I think that you saw something and it was scary or weird and you don’t want to talk about it. But I can promise you that whatever it was, I  _ will _ believe you.”

Samantha rests her temple against the doorframe, her eyes stuck on her fingernails. Without her defiance, she looks so much younger.

“It wasn’t scary—not at first,” she begins. “Frankly, I don’t know what the hell that was. Maybe I’m just making things up.”

“That’s okay, just tell me what you think you saw.”

“On my way back, I— I hid behind this big tree to… uh, to have a smoke. Don’t tell my mom,” she adds quickly, for the first time truly sounding her age.

With a knowing smirk, Dean mimes doing a zipper across his lips.

“I saw the phone lights shining under the overhang so I knew someone was there but I didn’t care. Until it came—”

Dean doesn’t rush her, waiting for her to tell the story at her own pace.

When she looks up at him, for just a moment, she doesn’t look scared, rather embarrassed, her cheeks turning red, eyes dropping back to her fingers.

“It was a horse,” she says with a little nervous chuckle. “I know, I know—it’s Texas, there’s horses. But I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never seen one that huge.”

Dean’s trying not to feel too smug about being right with the horse hoof imprint but it’s nice to have the pieces falling into a logical pattern.

“Where did it come from?”

“No idea. I just saw it walking along the river, against the current.”

“What color was it?”

Samantha shrugs. “It was dark, it could have been purple as well. It looked majestic.”

Dean’s certainly betting on black, here.

“What happened next?”

“I took off my headphones and heard one of the guys begging the other not to be an idiot. But he didn’t listen. The horse—it stopped and seemed to be waiting for him to climb on his back and the guy did.”

Dean lets out a long-suffering sigh. Of course he did. Because a huge dark horse walking in the river unsupervised is basically the same thing as a welcoming mat.

“And the other boy?”

“I’m not sure because—” she hesitates, her palm nervously pulling at the tips of her hair.

“Because?”

“I think it saw me. The horse turned its head and looked straight at me with those glowing eyes and— and I ran away. I heard some shouting after that until I was too far. Or the horse was too far. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s good. You did the right thing by running away.”

“I should have told the cops but I didn’t think they’d believe me. Maybe it just seemed that big and the eyes—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I said I’d believe you and I do. I’ll look into it, okay?”

Samantha nods but after giving it some thought, she adds, quietly, “Is there something I could do to help? I don’t want this thing in my town.”

Dean can’t help a sad smile. How much bravery did that little question require? Just two days ago she was terrified of the thing, now she wants to help to keep others safe. Hopefully, that won’t be necessary.

“Just stay safe, alright?”

She nods again but Dean can’t tell whether she’s relieved or disappointed.

“One last thing and I’m gone,” he says. “Any chance it was sticky?”

Samantha’s face scrunches up in disgust. “What?”

“The horse, was it sticky?”

“I— I don’t, I didn’t touch it—”

But before Dean gets to clarity, a noise from inside the house steals Samantha's attention and by the way her shoulders fall slack, the view isn’t pretty.

“I’m sorry, I have to clean that up,” she says, back to that tough girl she was before Dean made her relive that night. She adds a quick “Good luck,” before unceremoniously shutting the door.

Dean should have been in Kermit right now, talking to Sam and trying to make amends, but he doesn’t really mind taking his time anymore. They both need to figure things out and Sam has to simmer down first. Because, of course, Dean was the one who committed the mortal sin between the two—not Sam almost getting Dean’s friend killed even though Benny didn’t do anything wrong, done nothing but been saving Dean’s hide since the very moment they met.

And yet it was Dean making an eight hundred miles long drive to apologize to him for a move straight from junior high. As if that text was putting anyone in danger or hurting anything more than their feelings.

And right now it’s Dean who’s freezing and alone, Benny’s on the run and alone, and Sam’s probably having the time of his life with his ex-and-again girlfriend. So really, who here is the loser?

The freezing his ass off Dean does mind. It’s a damn cold evening—or maybe it’s just that the cool air seeped into his bones slowly over the last three hours of sitting and waiting for the horse to arrive.

A kelpie, that’s what it must be. A magnificent black horse from Scottish folklore—so a long way from home, and Dean would know; that flight there and back still haunts his dreams. It can take on many forms, human included, but favors the equine shape. It’s found haunting streams and rivers, carrying seaweed in its mane. It’s all there, down to the glowing eyes and kidnapping children. Teens, apparently, too. It gets them stuck to its sticky back and drags them to hell.

Of course, it has to be hell. Why can’t it be, well, literally anywhere else? Like Hawaii. Or Purgatory—that’s where the monsters go, after all, that’s what they’re tied to. Purgatory Dean knows, and most importantly, he knows how to escape it. Hell, sure, he knows it too, all too well for his liking. But the last time he was there he needed an army of angels to get him out, so he’s gonna pass on getting stuck in there.

There isn’t much of a plan. He just waits, so unprepared he’s embarrassed for himself. The best known way to gain the control over a kelpie is putting a bridle on it—with a cross attached to it—which is very Christian of it, but Dean’s not gonna argue. Except, he doesn’t have a bridle ‘cause he didn’t have the time for a tour around all those horse farms in the town. The sun has set much sooner than he’d like and he’s not letting any other reckless kid get kidnapped even if he has to take their place and improvise.

He considered lighting the bonfire, but he had no wood and he didn’t want to risk the flames putting the kelpie off, so all he had were those crappy blankets the town kids left there and texts from Benny to keep him warm.

He doesn’t get to improvise, though. There are no people to save, which is good. There’s also no horse, which is less good. Long before midnight, his toes and fingers feel like icicles—or rather don’t feel at all. He gives up and leaves his post before his digits fall off and he has nothing to hold onto the overhang with. Climbing up like this is hard enough.

Waste of time, waste of health. He’s gonna need a solid drink to make up for it.

During the short drive back to the town’s center, the Impala’s heating does a little to stop his teeth from chattering, but he can still feel the shivers running through his body. And he must be looking even worse because as soon as he sits down on the bar stool, trying to decide between cold beer or cold whisky—neither looking especially enticing at the moment—a well-known voice pops up beside him.

“I recommend hot mead for this kinda weather.”

What Dean sees when he turns his head is less familiar. Porter’s sitting at the bar in civilian clothes: the suit fitted his body perfectly but also didn’t seem to fit him all that well. The leather jacket looks much better on him. His hair, previously combed back, now falls in soft waves around his face and brushes his shoulders. And the cowboy boots that Dean couldn’t miss. It’s a damn good look.

For a cop, that is.

There’s a steaming glass sitting in front of him.

“Funny thing,” Dean says. “Not the first time I’m hearing about mead today.”

“Guess that means you gotta try it.”

“Yeah.” A smile plays on Dean’s lips. “Guess I do.”

Porter pulls out a bill and drops it on the counter. “On me.”

Dean’s not gonna refuse that offer. Even if, a few minutes later, it lands him at the same corner table with a cop, one that wasn’t so fond of him just a few hours earlier. But it’s only one drink, after all, and Dean can handle a little awkwardness.

At least, they got a common topic—even if Dean can’t share his findings, he might still learn about the boys, a reason the kelpie picked them, if he’s lucky.

“Sorry about earlier,” Porter says, surprising Dean. “We don’t like higher-ups meddlin’ in our business.”

That certainly was clear from the start. But Dean does appreciate it.

“Listen, I get it. I’m from a small town myself. But there’s the town business and then there are missing teens.”

Porter nods, and takes a slow sip of his mead. Dean follows. The thing’s nothing like he imagined. It’s definitely not honey-sweet, and rather spicy. Its warmths spills into his mouth and spreads pleasantly across his body. That was a damn good recommendation, Dean’s gotta admit.

“What if they don’t wanna be found?” Porter says.

“What do you mean?”

“I managed to get Jake’s father talkin’—” He’s hesitant, carefully picking his words. Sounds like the ‘my town business’ kind of thing he’s not too willing to share. “Wasn’t easy but half a bottle of whisky can sometimes be worth its price. Turns out the boys weren’t just friends. The man found them kissing in a shed, as you can imagine, he didn’t take it well. So the boys ran.”

Dean mulls his words over. It fits Porter’s version nicely. Samantha’s version only to a point, though. Unless the Kelpie is an old, bigoted prick, but that would certainly be a new one.

For now, Dean’s gonna roll with it.

“So what, we’re just supposed to let two teens squat somewhere and freeze to death?”

“From what I know, they’re smart boys. Mark did some tutoring, Jake helped at the construction site. I’m sure they’ll manage a few days and when the dust settles they’ll come back. Right now, they’re probably better off where they are. Jake definitely is.”

If only that was the whole story. Had Porter let Dean in on those details, Dean’d probably believe him and stopped sniffing. Timing’s everything, as they say.

“Of course, since he admitted to the whole thing, I’m gonna make damn sure he doesn’t have a chance to put a hand on Jake ever again.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Dean says, lifting his glass. Now, if he can only find a way to pull these poor boys out of hell, with a bunch of therapy, the story might still have a happy ending.

They finish their drinks in a companionable silence, Porter tapping fingers on the table to the rhythm to some old country song coming from the speakers.

It’s on the second glass of mead, which seems to be steadily pumping warmth into Dean’s body, all the way to his frozen fingers and toes, that Porter has a different kind of information for Dean.

“Good news is all those missing folks in Bastrop County?” he begins and it takes Dean a second to realize why the name sounds so damn familiar. Shit. “They must have all miraculously returned ‘cause I looked for those missin’ cases you mentioned an’ I ain’t found none.”

This isn’t good. Very, very not good. Dean tries to push down the slight panic and shoots Porter an awkward smile.

“Did I say Bastrop? No, I meant—”

“That car of yours though?” he cuts Dean off. “‘67 Impala, ain’t it?” He lets out a long whistle, impressed in that ‘hoo boy that’s  _ some _ shit you got yourself into’ kind of way. “Popped up in quite a lot of cases all over the country.”

The way Porter’s looking at him, Dean’s not sure whether there’s a point in saying another word or if his only options are to run or to run.

“Heard that before,” he tries still, fingers wrapped around his glass of mead, ready to slush Porter’s face with the warm drink, should at least slow him down for a second. “It’s all ‘cause of that big trunk, very versatile.”

But then, instead of breaking out the handcuffs, Porter lets out a hearty chuckle, his whole face changing. Dean narrows his eyes at him, not sure what’s going on. Is he trying to throw him off?

“Good to have a face to put to that legendary name, Dean Winchester,” Porter says finally. “Though I thought you were the brother that can sweet-talk his way into Fort Knox but I must’ve got you two confused.”

“Whatever you heard, I’m the cooler one,” Dean says almost reflexively as his entire body relaxes.

“Shame I can’t compare for myself,” Porter says. “Heard you were inseparable.”

Dean really doesn’t wanna talk about Sam. He’s definitely not drunk and not friendly enough with the guy to talk to him about Sam. So he gives him a non-committal hum and changes the topic, “Wait, so I’m guessing you’re not a detective?”

“Oh, I’m a detective.” He takes a big swig from his glass. “And a hunter—well, I dabble.”

“Dabble?” That’s sure a term Dean hasn’t heard in the hunter dictionary. It’s always all or nothing, Dean’s learned it the hard way.

“I make sure the folks in my town are safe. You can rest assured, there ain’t no monsters here.”

Dean’s still not convinced. If he merely  _ dabbles _ in hunting, there’s no way there aren’t things that slipped past him. Hell, Dean’s dealt with this crap his entire life and the monsters inc. manages to surprise him almost weekly. And Dean’ll always take the word of a scared witness over the word of a cocky rookie hunter who has any reassurances to give away.

“And how’d you make sure of that?”

“I got my ways,” he says, offering nothing more.

So he’s  _ that _ kind of a hunter. Dean pulls out his phone and slides it across the table with the picture on top.

“That why you were asking about horses?”

“Not a regular horse. A kelpie.”

“A kelpie? The Scottish one?” Porter lets out a brief laugh.

“You think monsters respect geography?”

“No, it’s just— you got that from a hoof print?”

“No, but it all adds up, man. It’s a horse,” he starts, erecting one finger to count up, “on the river, kidnapping children. It’s all there, down to the seaweed, glowing eyes and all.”

Right away, Dean knows he said too much.

“Glowin’ eyes?” Porter echoes. “And how d’you know that?”

Dean leans back in his chair and treats Porter to his own line, “I got my ways.”

Porter doesn’t buy that. “It was the witness girl, wasn’t it? Samantha Groves?” Dean’s silence tells him enough. “I knew I shoulda tried harder with that one. You sure do got your way, Dean.”

“So what? You believe now?”

“Not sure, but it’s worth checking out.”

The cheeseburger isn’t half as good as Dean remembered from the day before. Frankly he should have gone for something more greasy for the hangover he’s having, but it’s not as bad, one Aspirin should cover it. For all that awkward back and forth of camaraderie and snark delving into hostility that nearly gave Dean whiplash, Dean would count the night as well-spent and well-drunk.

He’s not even sure of half the crap he told the guy. Might have as well rambled out half his life story. He shouldn’t have drunk so much, whether it was loneliness or just having someone there who was in the life and who would listen. Shit, his whining must have been pathetic; about Benny, about Sam.

It was only around two when Porter snuck out without a goodbye. At that point Dean didn’t care much, wasn’t in the right mindstate to care. He just finished his drink and went back to the motel.

Now it’s back to the research. And back to the cheeseburger that’s more than disappointing: without yesterday’s accompanying wave of pleasure at having something in his mouth at all, he is left with his molars working their way through the meat that’s been on the flame way too long and he’s not even gonna get into the copious amounts of green stuff stuffed between the buns.

_ Bet your burgers were streets ahead of the burnt bunny food crap I’m eating right now, _ Dean types the message and sends it to Benny.

He probably should have waited for a more vampire-friendly time, or kept it to himself altogether. It’s just a burger and Dean’s eaten worse, way worse.

Except, any other day Dean would complain about the leafy crap to Sam. And then he’d probably get a lecture about how good the leafy crap is for him and that it’s in fact all that bbq sauce in it that’s the problem.

_ Greatest burgers west of the Atlantic, _ comes an answer. _ Only the best ground beef, tender and juicy like a dream. No veggies -- noted. _

Dean almost chokes on a piece of the damn leaf as he reads the message. Once he manages to rescue himself with a glass of water, he replies with,  _ Tomatoes are okay, _ which—cut him some slack, he just nearly died because of a salad, so take that, Sammy.

Right, Sammy. If Dean manages to ice the kelpie early enough, he might hit the road right away and maybe even get to Kermit before midnight. It’s only been a day, yet the thought of resuming his life feels weird, especially stopped at this alien moment, at odds with Sam for what feels like a wrong reason.

He looks down at the phone, the last message that feels a little too close to flirting for comfort. He scrolls through yesterday’s conversation that was the only thing that made Dean’s stubborn stake-out bearable.

They’re just text, simple, silly, about nothing that really matters, but Dean can’t help smiling every time the envelope pops-up on his screen.

Benny could have been dead now. It was so close that the very thought makes Dean feel nauseous again. All because of Sam. All because Sam couldn’t trust his own brother. Or maybe ‘cause he was jealous, too. Who the hell can say? Why the hell is Dean the one hoping for forgiveness?

_ Any progress, chief? _

_ Not really. Kelpie comes for kids and teens. I have to make it want me. _

_ Have you tried a school uniform? With shorts? _

_ And there I thought you were funny. There has to be some summoning spell, right? _

_ You’re the expert, I’m afraid. _

There is no summoning spell. At least not in the resources at hand. He’s been searching for hours and it’s beginning to look like he’d sooner find a de-aging spell that would turn him into a kid than a way to summon one freakin’ hell horse.

_ So you’re gonna need… _

_ Bait, yeah. I don’t like it. _

There’s only one kid around that Dean knows. She might have volunteered, but being a bait is certainly not what she had in mind.

It’s the worst kind of job, using someone as bait, especially if that someone is still a kid. He might try to do everything in his power to keep her safe and still fail and that’ll be on him. Best he can promise is that if the horse takes her, he will not stop until he gets her back. She’ll only have months or years of hell trauma to deal with, if he doesn’t die trying.

He’ll have the bridle this time, with a cross on it and all that jazz. And gloves too, to avoid getting glued to the kelpie’s mane and having to chop his palms off like the poor schmuck in one of the folk tales. As long as the lore works, and if he manages to put the bridle on the kelpie’s head, he should be able to control and command it to do whatever he wants it to do.

There are tales of hubris, of people straight-up using captured kelpies like horses for field work which, of course, could not possibly end well, as soon as the kelpie broke out of the proverbial chain.

And if it doesn’t work? It would not be the first time that the lore lies. He’d prefer if it did not fail today of all days when he’s all alone and about to be dragged to hell.

But hey, no risk, no fun.

If only it was just his own life he was risking.

It’s not Samantha that opens the door this time, but someone who Dean assumes is her mother; although similarities are there: same eyes, same height. And the same toddler sitting on her hip, except their eyes are red and cheeks are glistening now. This will complicate things. It’s one thing to talk a teenage girl into risking her safety, a different thing entirely to ask her mom’s permission. More responsible of him, though.

“Hi, agent Ford, FBI. Can I talk to your daughter Samantha?”

The woman snorts. “So now she’s in trouble with the FBI, too?”

“No ma’am, not in trouble. Just doing a follow-up regarding the missing boys.”

“Well, then you’re gonna have to go find her first.”

Dean blinks. “What do you mean? She’s not at home?”

“I woke up to this one crying and Sam nowhere to be found. She made ruckus some time after midnight and must’ve gotten out through the window.”

After midnight, when Dean was already at the bar, instead of keeping the vigil at the riverbank. For whatever reason—to try and get rid of the horse on her own or just to make sure with her own eyes that what she’d seen had been real—she went to the river on her own.

It’s because of Dean’s prodding, isn’t it? He brought up the memories that she tried to push away, brought up the uncertainty.

“So your daughter’s missing and—”

Another snort cuts him off.

“She better be, ‘cause no other excuse will save her.”

Dean’s putting a lot of his strength into not exploding into the woman’s face. Her daughter is gone, the second disappeared case in the town. She might be tearing her throat up in Hell right now and her mother only cares about the lack of free childcare.

“Have you tried calling her?”

“What do you think?” the woman blurts out as the little one’s face scrunches up again, mouth babbling something that sounds like ‘Sama.’ “Been calling all day. She’s not picking up and I’ve no one to leave the kid with.“

“Well,” Dean says pointedly, “I’m sure they won’t mind you bringing the kid to the police station to file the missing person. Goodbye.”

He removes himself from the premises without waiting for the response. He’s got no time nor patience for dealing with this. His mind’s solely locked on Samantha. Why the hell did she go to that damned riverbank when he asked her to stay put? Why couldn’t she come sooner when Dean still could have stopped her?

Why did Dean have to decide the coast is clear just because he got a little cold? Partying with Porter surely wasn’t worth her life. If he wasn’t so hammered, if he strolled back to the river, would she still be there?

His thoughts and car are racing towards the river. He doesn’t have much hope of finding her there. Today’s been much warmer than yesterday, but making it through the whole night and day wouldn’t end well for her—if still better than what a kelpie encounter would bring her.

Without hesitation, he lets himself down to the alcove. He doesn’t have much time for looking around, the sun is hanging low over the horizon.

But the place looks just like he left it. The plastic’s drawn over the backseats as thoroughly as his numb fingers let him. The blankets might have gotten tossed around, but he can’t be sure.

As in the case of Jake and Mark, there doesn’t seem to be a sign of struggle, luckily no blood. There are a few new strains of seaweed climbing out from the water. So it was here.

Save to assume that it took her.

Dean curses under his breath. He can’t help feeling like it was all his fault. Not just for asking too many damn questions.

That’s when it hits him.

_ “It was the witness girl, wasn’t it? Samantha Groves?” _

Fuck.

He should have seen him through. Porter was there, from the start. He was  _ everywhere. _ Near Samantha, near his own crime scene even after the cops cleared the area. In the bar. And then he wasn’t there anymore at the same time Samantha got taken.

Why the hell did Dean trust the guy? He didn’t even like him that much.

The sun’s almost down. Which is perfect. Dean needs the horse not the cop if he wants to catch a ride to Hell tonight.

“Hey, Porter, bad news,” he announces to the phone. “Samantha is gone. I’m positive the horsey-horse took her.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I found something interesting at the site. But you’re gonna have to come see it.”

“Can’t you just send me the pictures?”

Of course, he’s not gonna be impressed by the kidnapping he committed himself. He’s gonna need a bigger incentive. He got rid of Samantha when she started talking. Well, Dean’s good at talking.

“I think this thing is so much bigger than we thought. I should probably be calling my brother now and probably a couple more hunters to come and deal with it.”

“What the hell for?” Porter says quickly. Dean can sense his rising panic. “We can handle it together.”

“I don’t know, man. It’ll be good to have a couple extra hands on—”

“I’ll be there in ten,” he says sharply and ends the call.

“Like a charm,” Dean mutters to himself, but he doesn’t put his phone away.

He should let Sam know. Even if he doesn’t answer, even if he doesn’t bother with reading the message today or tomorrow. But maybe, if Sam feels like it, he’ll try saving Dean, this time. He’ll know where to look for him this time—that was his excuse last time, wasn’t it? When Dean was stuck in Purgatory? Nothing to go on, no idea where to look, as if Dean was stuck inside a freakin’ Enigma.

So Dean had to get out on his own—well, almost his own. With Benny and thanks to Benny. That’s why as much as Dean doesn’t like holding grudges, he can’t stop feeling hurt by Sam’s choice. And by Sam’s unfounded anger at Benny—as if Benny was the bad guy just for existing.

So was it guilt? Or was it jealousy? Dean’s getting tired of kidding himself that it’s not the latter.

Now it’s Dean who gets to show an uglier side: anger, petty. It was his life and Benny’s life Sam toyed with. Call it an insurance policy, for Benny’s life, call it tying his own life to Benny the way Benny did with him at the portal’s feet, their arms linked, blood spilled.

The chain of his and Benny’s exchanges opens first anyway.

_ Hey, I’m about to do something stupid. If you don’t hear from me, I’ll be in hell. _

He climbs back up to the street level and hides behind the tree. It’s not the greatest hiding place but it’ll have to do.

Now all he’s got left is to wait for Porter to appear.

Though there are two glowing dots coming Dean’s way, he knows it’s no car. Instead of a roar of the engine, there’s a rhythmic stomping on the asphalt. The show-off had to make a big entrance, galloping towards Dean; black like the night, wild, and terrifying. As if regular horses weren’t enough.

As the horse nears, Dean comes to understand what Samantha meant by the biggest horse she’s ever seen. The thing’s big and Dean’s thankful for the tree that shields him from its monstrous body charging at full velocity.

If he didn’t know what the hell he was looking at, he’d be freaking out—he couldn’t possibly blame Samantha for doing the same and running away. How she managed to return here on purpose and confront it again eludes him.

Knowing the horse’s other face, though, the half-fun, half-irritating cop who only kidnaps children  _ sometimes  _ and drives them to hell? Kinda breaks the spell.

At least as long as Dean keeps at a safe distance. Which isn’t gonna last much longer.

The horse isn’t aiming to collide with him, luckily. Before the road ends, he corrects his path and gallops straight onto the overhang, springs off its edge and in an arch descends into the shallow water. He lands with grace, never breaking the chase, as the water splashes around him. Then he stops and turns to look at Dean, provocatively.

“Not in the mood for a talk, I see?”

Dean would have preferred to have the element of surprise, but that hasn’t really been an option since Porter chose to kidnap Samantha. But that’s okay, Dean’s got another ace in his sleeve.

With his bag behind his back, Dean enters the overhang, crouches at its edge and waits for the horse to return to the dry land.

“Come on, we both know what we’re here for.”

The horse seems to be smiling, but Dean might be projecting Porter’s smirk onto his emotionless horse-face. Because of course, horses don’t smile. Not even Scottish folkloric ones.

“Just you and me and a one-way ticket downstairs.”

The kelpie throws his head back and lets out a deep neigh that seems to echo against the rock walls of the alcove. Then he begins to walk Dean’s way, crossing through the ashes of the bonfire, until he’s beneath Dean’s feet.

His ears nearly graze the stone ceiling, his back’s not far down. It won’t be hard to slide down and mount him. The bridle? That’s a different story.

As he was borrowing it from the nearby horse farm, he managed to get himself a brief training in putting it on a horse. Except that good girl was standing still, patiently waiting for Dean to bridle her, and it took him way longer than he’d like.

Now, he’s only got one shot, on a wild, monster horse, while trying not to fall off his back.

Away from the kelpie’s line of sight, Dean quietly grabs the bridle from the bag, holds it so that it’s comfortable to put on in as few moves as possible.

Here goes nothing.

It’s a hard landing, but he secures a comfortable position, both his legs pressing to the sides for balance. Although, if the lore is true, he shouldn’t be able to fall off the kelpie’s sticky body even if he tried to. His arms are already working on the bridle, while the horse yanks his head every which way, protesting against the restraints.

Leaned forward as far as possible without getting his jacket stuck to the kelpie’s neck, Dean focuses on not having his fingers chewed off, whole his gloves don’t make the job of slipping the bit between the horse’s teeth any easier.

Once that piece is in its place, the rest goes smoother and soon the bridle is on. The kelpie still tries to struggle, letting out noises of discontent, but some of his fight seems to be gone.

“Sorry, Detective, but you’ve been a bad Horsey,” Dean says, voice hushed, as he holds onto the reins. “Now we got some kids to save.”

Dean wishes he actually took a lesson in riding while he was on the farm, but it’s not like he had a whole day. He tries yanking on the reins, gripping his sides with his legs and some other moves he learned from westerns but nothing gets the horse moving.

“Really?” he mutters. “Come on, time for a trip to Hell.”

At that, without a warning, the horse shoots forward and Dean’s beginning to regret his wording. ‘Take me to the kidnapped children’ would have probably been safer. But there Dean is, being a dramatic idiot who might pay for it with unending suffering.

Instead towards the center, to one of the deep water pockets, he starts running along the river bank, the hooves spattering water all around. Dean holds onto the reins tightly, trying not to get glued to the kelpie with anything other than his butt. His ruined jeans will be the least of his worries if he actually manages to rip himself off his back.

The grind of the shifting pebbled beneath each step doesn’t seem to bother him and soon, Dean can’t even hear it, or anything that’s not the swishing of the wind that fills his ears. And the hammering of Dean’s heart inside his chest.

He’s got no idea where they’re going and how long has it been already. All he knows is that there is no turning back, so he tries to lean into the motion of the horse’s back and not to focus on how much he wishes he had the saddle too.

They move from the water’s current onto the dry land just as it begins to raise. Dean recognizes the entry where he left Baby just a day ago. The path left would have led them to the town’s center. But that’s not where they’re going, they follow the river instead. Dean hazards a glance to the side—the water flows undisturbed a good few feet below them now.

For a moment Dean entertains a thought that maybe he’ll avoid a freezing bath tonight, but he doesn’t have the time to appreciate the parallel of his first conversation with Porter, as the river abruptly turns and the turf ahead of them ends.

The jump looked much better from the ground, but now it feels like flying. That’s until they begin to fall and a black depth comes closer with each split second. Here it is, the well to hell, Dean thinks and nearly forgets to hold his breath.

The cold nearly paralyzes him. Is he even still inside his body? Or did slamming through the water table shoot his soul right out of it? His eyes shut close, no sound coming in through the low hum of water. No feeling coming through his shocked nerves, no tension in his muscles.

There is nothing.

No world outside, no fear of Hell. No thought inside of his head as if someone hit a reset button, the constant weight that’s rested on his shoulders since he was four dissipates in the cold.

There is no him. Only blissful nonexistence.

Dean wouldn’t mind if this was death.

Then the mass of muscles beneath him shifts, long, strong motions, and slowly existence begins anew as if God said let there be Dean. The current slithers along the skin on his face, the subdued sounds from the nearby road reach his ears. The space behind his closed eyelids is no longer blackness. Are those hellish fires waiting for him?

He blinks as his head pierces through the water. His lungs drink the cold air like they’ve never tasted anything this clean. There’s no sulfur in the air. It’s still the river. The steady motions of the kelpie’s legs getting them closer to the other bank.

They’re on the dry land, again, but it doesn’t make much difference. Dean’s clothes hang heavy on his, soaked through and dripping with cold water.

Yet, somehow, Dean doesn’t feel cold at all.

“So you’re saying I  _ should _ try winter swimming?” Dean says, as his breathing returns to normal.

The kelpie doesn’t appreciate how hilarious Dean is. The way he shakes his head with disapproval, for the first time something human pierces through the form.

They keep going for a long time, trotting and galloping in turns. Dean’s certain the shivering and muscle spasms will come to him eventually, but for now he doesn’t want to worry about it. For now there’s only this moment, this ride, the rhythm of his body. There’s fresh air and the trees lining the path they’re treading.

“Are we still going to hell?” he asks, hoping for another shake of the kelpie’s head.

Instead, the head bobs, pointing to something ahead, but there’s nothing Dean can see in the darkness. It doesn’t take long, though, until an orange light appears in the distance, warm and inviting.

Soon, the trees split to reveal something resembling an old camp with five cabins around an unkempt meadow—one of them with soft orange light shining in the windows. Any other day Dean’s call a Friday the Thirteenth vibe, but tonight feels like a completely different kind of story. One with a happy ending.

“Where are we?” Dean asks, as if the kelpie could answer him in this form.

As soon as they stop, Dean slides off the horse, thankful that his pants came off with no problem and he didn’t end up with his butt out.

The Kelpie doesn’t let him forget about the bridle, pushing his head right into Dean’s face.

“Okay, okay,” Dean mutters, not really sure he should be taking it off. After all, freed kelpies don’t take kindly to their captors. But he also wants some damn answers from Porter and it seems like for that bridle has to come off first.

The horse begins shrinking right before Dean’s eyes, turning into his last night’s good drinking companion and today’s enemy.

“Wrong horse,” he says, instead of answering Dean’s question.

Dean raises an eyebrow at him. “There are two different huge black horses haunting the area?” he asks, realizing how stupid his question sounds before he gets to the end.

This one laugh at him Porter deserved. “There’s only one horse here. But if I really was a kelpie, you would be burning in Hell right now.” After a beat, he adds, waving at the bridle, “For this thing I definitely wanted to.”

“So what are you?”

“I’m a pooka,” Porter says in the most obvious tone, his Texan accent breaking on the word.

“A pooka?” Dean echoes. It tells him nothing. “Sorry, I’m a little rusty on my Dr. Seuss.”

Porter shakes his head.

“Still a black horse—among other things—much less malevolence.”

Dean hates being wrong, especially when it comes to hunts. It’s too dangerous. Except right now, he’s not even that angry about it. It all worked out—for him at least. And in his defense, he did most of that research on his phone with freezing fingers.

“Not my fault you’re just as shady.” Dean shrugs. “I found an answer and went with it—and if the shoe fits—”

“Fits?” He seems offended at the comparison. “Have you considered that sometimes the first option is not the best one?” A weird smirk appears on his face, a knowing kind of smirk. “No, of course you haven’t.”

Dean ignores whatever he’s trying to imply and crosses his arms on his chest. Here they go again.

“Depends on what you did with those teens.”

There’s no point in getting into whether Dean was right or wrong until he knows Mark, Jake and Samantha are safe.

“Behind you.”

Dean’s eyes narrow at him in surprise. Then, still mindful of the pooka guy standing in a punch distance from him, he turns his head. The cabin with the light on.

“Jake loved horses when he was a kid, before his mom’s death. These are the grounds of an old equestrian camp he’d come to every year.”

“So you knew all along and—?”

“No, I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t put two and two together until today.”

“Even though it was an equestrian camp?” Dean can’t help a little teasing.

Porter only lets out a chuckle.

It would also explain why Jake so readily jumped on a strange horse on the riverbank.

Dean takes a few steps towards the cabin, but in case Porter disappears while Dean checks the cabin out, he can’t let him go without more answers.

“And what about Samantha?”

“If I have to spell it out for you, she was done with bein’ a babysitter,” Porter says, though that’s not what Dean was asking. Then he adds, “I ain’t sure where she is. I left her where I found her, as I always do. But her number was in the files you never gave back.”

It would make sense that she didn’t want to pick up the phone when her mom called. Going by the situation and her mom’s behavior, she didn’t want to have that confrontation now that she was out.

“Don’t think I won’t check on her.”

“I’m countin’ on it.”

Porter was right about the boys—they were safe and sound in the cabin. They had enough fuel for heating and proper food supply to last them a few days. They didn’t exactly want to open up to a random FBI agent without a badge, but they promised they’ll be back at home tomorrow. They already called Mark’s parents too, to ease their worry.

They didn’t have to add they’re only ready to come back because Porter made sure Jake’s father doesn’t leave the jail cell until the trial. Jake will have to end up in foster care in his absence, but he’s just a few months away from turning eighteen.

Maybe the kid in fact will have some sort of happy ending.

Samantha only needed a break for a little bit. Her mother would have never let her go away for even a weekend, so she had to make her own choice. She apologized for the trouble.

“I think you should try to talk to her,” Dean tells her over the phone. It’s always easier to give advice than to follow it.

“I’ll try.”

“Take care, Samantha.”

“You know, she really prefers going by Sam,” Porter says, still hanging around Dean’s car.

Dean turns his eyes away, painfully transparent.

There’s no way Dean was gonna let Porter leave until he had everything sorted out and was certain he isn’t a killer. But now, he kind of really doesn’t want to hear any more of his wisdom.

“You’re free to go,” Dean says, handing him Samantha’s file and his phone he borrowed. Of course, his own got drowned and died and Dean’s not sure how much rice would help at this point.

“You never asked,” Porter says, not moving from his spot.

“Asked what?”

“What any of this has to do with me.”

Dean looks at him confused. He knows what he had to do with the missing kids. “You bring people to the brink of death for fun?”

“I gave ‘em clarity.”

Dean pulls a confused face at him. Clarity is not how he would describe what happened to him on the ride. Though he’s not sure how he would describe it. There was the kind of death, but there was the freedom too, and chasing and flying and just being without any worry, without problems.

“Alright, John Mayer, I’ll bite.”

“Well, that’s what I like to call it, but you’re the one still feelin’ it, so I should be askin’ you, what’re you gonna do with it?”

And it’s getting philosophical now. Dean shrugs.

“Sleep it off?”

Porter chuckles. “You could do that. Or you could keep doin’ what you’ve been doin’ the last two days: try to figure out what you want.”

“I know what I want,” Dean says firmly.

He’s going to Kermit. That was the plan. Sam has always been the plan. Dean isn’t sixteen, he can’t run away from home just because there’s something wrong in it. That’s not how things work in his life.

Sure, he’s got a few serious conversations ahead; he’s not gonna let Sam put the whole blame on him for this whole situation. Decapitation beats a fake text every time.

“Glad you do,” Porter says, but there’s doubt painted on his face. “And I hope it’s the person who’s been trying to call you all evening.”

Dean narrows his eyes at Porter, as he reaches for his phone on the passenger seat.

Benny. Crap. He must be worried about Dean being stuck in hell. There’s been too much going on and then Dean’s phone—

Dean presses the button just to remember his phone is dead.

“Before the bath,” Porter clarifies, then adds something Dean’d rather not know, “My back is very sensitive.”

Dean tries to ignore that and dives into the glove compartment in search of a spare.

“So who did you think about?”

It’s not really a fair question. How could he expect Sam if Sam hasn’t called since the fight, hasn’t cared. Being split for two days might not be their biggest fall out in history and Sam knows Dean can handle himself.

But it’s Benny whose voice he wants to hear now. It’s Benny who supported Dean in his case without any stakes in it. Or maybe Dean was enough of a stake. It’s a silly thought but it’s a nice one, too.

Porter leaves discreetly without a goodbye, as Dean with his cold fingers is struggling to swap the cards to get back Benny’s phone number and not freak him out with an unknown caller ID.

He should really get back to the room first, take a hot shower, change into dry clothes. Whatever pooka charm there was on him to keep him warm, it’s quickly wearing off. Hopefully the so-called clarity will not fade away as fast.

Because maybe Porter was right and Dean has got a lot of things to think through. And he can use any help he can get.

But first thing’s first.

“Hey, Benny, thought I’d tell you I’m fine.”

There’s a relief in Benny’s voice and Dean feels crappy for keeping him waiting. It’s nice to hear Benny’s voice after two days of only texting.

And it feels nice to be able to tell Benny all about the case; including his research screw-up and how damn long it took him to figure out Porter was behind everything. He doesn’t get any judgement for it. Maybe because Benny’s no hunter and doesn’t know these things aren’t supposed to happen. Or maybe just because it’s Benny: he doesn’t throw verbal bitchfaces or shame Dean for enjoying his potentially suicidal stunt of a ride.

They don’t talk long because it’s been a long day and the only thing Dean dreams of is his warm bed in the motel.

He falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

So much for that clarity.

Or maybe he utilized as much of it as he needed.

He has to make up with Sam, eventually—that’s not a question. Aside from everything, from it being  _ Sam, _ there’s the whole Demon Tablet thing that’s tying them together for the foreseeable future.

But for now, Sam’s got the whole Amelia thing to sort out. And he’s got his decisions to make. Dean has got his own. And right now, his decision looks very simple.

He’s not sure what Benny will wanna do, if he’ll wanna hunt. He doesn’t have to. He might just be someone to keep him company. Or someone that Dean could come back to after each hunt, someone to mend his wounds and soothe him, someone to drink a couple beers with and someone to bitch to about Dean’s entire freakin' life.

It doesn’t matter right now, they’ll figure it out. Because this case that was barely a case, in the small town that was never gonna even make a notch, gave him enough clarity to know that, even if just in this moment, there’s only one way out of Johnson City that will lead him where he needs to be.

And that road leads north.

_ Better stock up on that awesome ground beef and mead, _ says the last message he sent before a long, long way that he really doesn’t mind. _ I have high expectations. _

__

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always very much appreciated!


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